Throw away your glass filters! MetaGrad is, perhaps, the most creatively flexible plugin on this site! It provides most of the effects filters that were so popular with 35mm photographers for so long - but in a much more flexible form.

Prices: MetaGrad: £9.99  ::  or buy Conditioner + Refiner + MetaGrad for: £19.99

So, what do you want to do?

MetaGrad provides just about every style of gradient filter you can think of, both linear and centre-spot:

• Vertical gradient
• Horizontal gradient
• Centre-spot
• Horizontal bar
• Vertical column
• Uniform

... and you can fine-tune the way the effect is applied to the image:

• Apply uniformly
• Brightness sensitive
• Saturation sensitive
• Target brightness
• Target colour

... and you can choose from six different effects:

• Traditional Single-Colour Grad
• Dual-Colour Grad
• Colour Adjuster
• ND - Polarizer Filter
• Colour Polarizer
• Transparency

... and you can easily invert both gradient shapes and application modes for ultimate flexibility of use!

With MetaGrad, you're not getting just one effect, you're getting a whole box-full: read on for just a small selection of the creative possibilites!

Examples...

Hover your mouse pointer over each image to see the result of applying the effect...

The early-morning mist makes this shot atmospheric, but the colours are muted to the extent of making the image almost monochrome. I used a horizontal bar gradient style together with a blue-pink dual-colour gradient to add some colour artificially. The gradient was positioned approximately over the horizon line (which isn't actually visible!) so that the blue in the sky is repeated in the river at the bottom of the frame. Using the brightness apply mode confined the effect to the lighter areas - the sky and the river - leaving the trees and bridge dark and un-tinted.

Another approach with the same image is to use a centre-spot gradient style to create an imaginary sun shining through the mist - in practice you would probably want to use softer, more natural colours. Again the brightness apply mode was used, but this time the controls were adjusted to spread the colours partially into the misty areas to give a more impressionistic feel.

A similar, but subtly different result can be obtained using the 'Colour Polarizer' effect, in this case with a blue-pink gradient and the brightness apply mode. The end result causes the blue to affect shadow areas and the pink the lighter areas. A whole wealth of different results can be had just by playing with the sliders, though - and if you're stuck for ideas, try clicking the 'Random' button a few times and see what you get!

Effects don't have to be dramatic. In this case, I simply wanted to add a little more colour to an otherwise featureless sky. I used the ND-Polarizer effect to bring out the natural, but almost invisible blue colouration of the sky, by reducing exposure and increasing saturation a little. I also used the brightness apply mode to confine the effect to the sky areas without significantly altering the leaves and branches of the tree.

This 35mm roll-film shot suffered some light damage even before the film was developed - the camera was inadvertently opened before the film had been rewound. Fixing a problem like this requires a good deal of patience, and the results will rarely be perfect. Nevertheless, MetaGrad's Colour-Adjuster can give a useful improvement. I used column gradient carefully adjusted to cover the damaged area, then used the sliders to correct the colour. A second application using a spot-shaped gradient over the worst area at the bottom right of the frame also helped a little.

I used two applications of MetaGrad here, too - but in very different ways. First, I used a vertical gradient and the ND-Polarizer to reduce exposure in the upper half of the frame and bring some detail back into the sky. Using the brightness apply mode ensured that the church tower remained unchanged. Then I flipped the gradient over by checking the 'Invert' checkbox, and used the filter to increase exposure and reduce contrast for the darker tones in the lower half of the frame.

A more dramatic effect was achieved using the Colour Polarizer to add a brightness-targeted blue-pink colouration to the sky area.

The Transparency effect allows a host of vignette-style results to be achieved. In this case, I duplicated the image twice to give three identical layers, the applied a Gaussian blur to the middle one and changed its blend mode to "lightness". Finally, I used MetaGrad to give a centre-spot transparency gradient centred on Jack's face.

A wealth of effects can be achieved using the apply modes together with the Transparency effect; and MetaGrad isn't useful only for landscapes! In this case, I duplicated the layer and applied a moderate Gaussian blur to the lower layer. Then I used MetaGrad's Transparency effect with the brightness apply mode, carefully adjusted to give this result.

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